HALLOWEEN RETURNS Will Return To The John Carpenter Continuity

There's a new Halloween movie coming with the pretty bad title Halloween Returns, and fans want to know just which Halloween is returning. Is it the Halloween of John Carpenter? Or the Halloween of the Thorn cult where Laurie is dead? Or the Halloween where Michael Myers got his head cut off where Laurie is alive? Or the Halloween of Rob Zombie? Did you even know there were so many competing Halloween continuities? Do you even care?

Well, if you care, this could be good news: Halloween is joining the prestigious "Let's just ignore a lot of those sequels" club and appears to be connecting back to Halloween II, the one where Michael goes on a rampage in a hospital. That's what a casting call for the movie reveals, according to Shock Til You Drop: 

Shock has learned Halloween II’s Deputy Gary Hunt—who you may remember from the 1981 sequel as the blonde officer who accompanies Dr. Loomis to the school on the night he came home—appears in Halloween Returns, now as sheriff. This leaves Halloween Returns connected to the original series, unrelated to Rob Zombie’s films and—in contemporary fashion—not concerned with later sequels.

Of course Halloween Returns can't exactly follow up Halloween II, as that movie ends with Michael burning to death. He got better in time for Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers, but that movie started a weird trilogy that most people opt to forget. The final film in that series, The Curse of Michael Myers, has a really ambiguous cliffhanger ending that may have left both Michael and his dogged pursuer Dr. Loomis dead. It is certain, though, that this film will ignore the continuity of Halloween: H2O, which ends with Jamie Lee Curtis cutting off Michael's head. And quite clearly the Rob Zombie remake is off the table altogether.

Moviehole reports that Halloween Returns opens with Mike on death row, about to get executed for his crimes. The child of one of his previous victims comes to see the electrocution, but things go wrong and Michael escapes. According to the site the child of the victim is 18, which must mean that Mike had some other adventures after Halloween II - could the Thorn trilogy actually be in continuity?